


Welcome to the Show

by gravitation (orphan_account)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Thieves, BAMF!Louis, Delinquents, Drug Use, M/M, Male Slash, More tags to be added, Organized Crime, Prison, Teen Romance, juvenile detention center, teen criminals, triggering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/gravitation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was honestly nothing more terrifying to Harry than criminals. That was until he accidently became one by association.<br/>He'll only be there for a little while until they find out he's not guilty, that is if he can last that long with <em>real</em> delinquents.<br/>He's also not sure if prison is dictatorship or a democracy.</p><p>DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to the Show

**Author's Note:**

> Juvi AU  
> imma let you guess who is innocent and not but here's a hint  
> harrys a golden child of course he's not fucking guilty dumbass  
> BAMF!Louis

Harry knew he was royally fucked the moment he saw red and blue flashing into his peripheral vision. He knew his life was basically over when he was cuffed and led to the back of the police car alongside Nick, who was so conveniently saying nothing to defend them. He knew by the time he saw his mum and sister from the front of the courtroom that they were more than disappointed in him, and he knew they weren’t going to speak up for him when the judge asked if anyone was opposed to this sentence. He knew in two weeks he’d be lying on the floor with a toothbrush-turned-shiv impaled in his stomach.

He also knew he was innocent, but apparently no one else did.

So because of Nick _fucking_ Grimshaw, Harry was going to spend close to three years in the _Lily Lake juvenile detention center for troubled youth_ before being promptly shipped off to prison. Needless to say Nick was definitely not considered a friend; Harry hadn’t another friend to come visit him when he really was locked up. Exciting.

However, it wasn’t until Harry was actually inside the lobby of the main building that he recognized how scared he was. At the hearing he was gone. During the police escort, he was gone. Upon ‘listening’ to the rules and regulations of the detention center explained by some overly-enthused woman, he was gone. But now, as he was being led into the hallway with his hands no longer cuffed behind his back, he was scared. He was scared because he had no idea if when he turned the corner some delinquent in a psychotic break might jump him. Or if he’d be zapped in some electric chair for answers like in those old horror films with the asylums. Or something. This was because he, again, hadn’t been entirely there when he was being told what to expect. 

On one thought he was disappointed by the lack of psychos with wild eyes. But on another he was hell of glad there weren’t any. At least not yet.

He also hadn’t met anyone yet either so the insanity level was probably rock bottom. And he sure as hell didn’t want to face the surface.

The man escorting him turned quite abruptly into a doorway and Harry nearly tripped over himself trying to follow. He lost his breath, though, the first moment he saw the elongated room full of dark eyes and tired skin, all labeled by orange jumpsuits and black stitched numbers over their hearts.

Harry’s eyes couldn’t focus on one face for more than a split second before they darted left or right, desperately trying to find a friendly pair and failing in the most miserable way. His escort was saying something in a dull voice; Harry couldn’t hear over the sound of his own breathing, quickly turning hyperventilation. Then the man was gone and Harry was staring at the spot he used to be standing in as if he’d been his last hope. This wasn’t a wrong accusation.

Looking back to the estimated twenty or thirty kids in the room, Harry watched two of the boys from the middle of it all stand up quite abruptly from their picnic bench seats.

While Harry is trying to breathe, he bravely looks to their faces. And then he wishes he hadn’t. Because the both of them are pretty. _Extremely_ pretty. You know, for delinquents.

He decides to take it safe as he can and examines the one furthest away first.

The boy is breathtakingly handsome with dark features and dark skin and dark eyes and dark _everything_. He looks disinterested in the situation, and upon thinking back on this moment later Harry would note that this boy only stood up because the one infront of him did so first. Actually this boy wasn’t even facing him. He and his chiseled jaw line are in perfect profile from Harry’s point of view, and he’s half-sitting on the table top of the picnic bench, one foot hanging loosely off the side and the other propped up on his previous seat. The guy looks like someone Harry would like to try to avoid. 

Actually he looks like someone Harry met the night he was first arrested. Like a dealer of sorts.

Swallowing hard, Harry turned his eyes to the boy who stood up fully, infront of the exotic drug dealer. If you asked him he’d deny it, but seeing him Harry might’ve let out a pathetic, almost-audible whine. Only because he was scared, obviously, but probably, likely, ultimately not. If he’d have known there were such pretty people in juvi, he might have volunteered his sad excuse for a social life for a few days in kid-prison. Maybe.

The boy was terrifying. He stood fairly tall but it was clear to Harry he was struggling to pull it off because he really _wasn’t_. Harry might have a few inches on him in a year or two. But that’s not really the point. 

His hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days (a large contrast to his friend’s hair) and it stuck up in every direction, swept messily in a fringe across his forehead. Just below the eyebrows, on arched in interest, were dangerously sharp blue eyes. And by dangerous he meant the boy looked completely _menacing_. Harry supposed most of them looked similar, but there was something quite different about these eyes rather than his friend’s, or another else’s. This boys eyes were _intelligent_ , while the majority of the rest were only trying to look it. This boy was twice as intimidating as the twenty other delinquents that sat in the cafeteria, eyes plastered to Harry’s frail figure, because those eyes knew. Those eyes weren’t supposed to look threatening, they were supposed to make you feel stupid.

Harry figured he was likely the smartest person in the room, and everyone else must've been too. He was locked into an intense stare with those blue eyes for too long, until Harry felt his knees getting weak under it.

Suddenly the boy's gaze was shifted just left, and Harry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He didn’t know that the boy hadn’t just given Harry a breather until there was a solid hand wrapped around his mouth and he was being pulled back out of the room by two pairs of them. Before someone’s fingers covered his frantic eyes, he noticed the two boys in the room loosing quick interest and sitting down back to their food. 

That was when Harry started struggling. He hit someone’s nose with a frantic wave of his fists, sending one of the two people, he supposed, reeling. 

“Ow! Fuck, Liam let go of him already. God damnit is my nose bleeding?” he heard one voice, distinctly irish. Harry was confused enough to stop mid-swing and just listen to the whisperings behind him. When they settled, the hands from his eyes and mouth disappeared. 

Spinning to face the two, Harry was surprised to find himself in another -smaller- room with two boys, probably his age or likely older. He was stunned to silence, watching the blonde struggle to stop the bleeding from his nose with his hands. 

“Um, sorry about that. We needed to get you before they did…I suppose you wouldn’t have just come if we’d asked.” Said the taller of the two, drawing Harry’s attention to him. Characterized by a kind face and kind eyes, he looked like just someone off the streets and hell that was the scariest thought he'd had all day. Harry opened his mouth to say something but he was still stuck in silence.

“I’m Liam, this is Niall. We’re probably the nicest here... we wanted to warn you about the lot of them in the cafeteria beforehand…” Liam said, waiting for confirmation from Harry to continue, and upon receiving nothing did so anyway.

“First of all, what’s your story?” Liam asked, the blonde boy, Niall, fishing out a tissue from somewhere inside the orange jumpsuit, shoving it up his left nostril. 

Harry felt his throat go dry, “I, um, I'm guilty by association of drug dealing, but I didn't…” He became perpetually confused when Liam made a frustrated face, watching the boy’s eyebrows knit together.

“You're serious? Are you an idiot, you can't go around telling people that you'll be ripped to shreds. So you stole some weed off a drug dealer and-“

“Wait, wait. Why do you want me to seem even _more_ like a delinquent? I really didn’t even do anything wrong…” Harry interrupted. He looked towards Niall as the boy sniffed once, before speaking.

“Because if you tell them that lame story they’ll tear you to pieces in there. Honestly…” the boy said, saying so as if it were completely obvious. He went back to nursing his bleeding nose quietly to himself.

“It’s true. The only thing I did wrong was get in the car with a drunk driver who pulled over and cleaned out a gas station of all its food. I was actually unconscious through the entire event but of course that can’t be proven.” Liam explained tiredly, as if he’d told it a million times. Harry knew though that he hadn’t, because apparently he would’ve been torn to pieces. “I tell people I hotwired the car and stole everything myself.”

“Can’t they tell you’re lying though? What if they find out?” Harry asked, this really didn’t seem like such a great idea on their part. If they were the nicest…

“How the hell are they going to find out if I know how to hotwire a car or not? There happens to be a fifteen foot fence and barbed wire standing between the closest one.” Liam asked, exasperated. Harry decided that he wouldn’t ask questions anymore without thinking them through.

“Besides the only ones who tell the truth are Louis and Zayn. That’s why they scare everyone at least.” Niall said, inspecting the bloody tissue and folding it over, stuffing it back up his nose.

“Louis and…? Are they the-“

“The two who gave you the stare down a few minutes ago?” Niall spoke, voice coming out a bit muffled and nasally. “Yeah, they’re actually really smart and really fucking scary.”

Liam sighed, “No, Louis is the only somewhat intelligent person in this hell hole.” 

Niall gave Harry a look, smile twisting into a smirk. He cupped a hand to his mouth, whispering to Harry. Almost silently. “Liam’s got a kink for accomplices.” Harry had to cover his mouth to keep from snorting. Liam only glared.

“Shut up Niall, for god’s sake. Come on.” Grabbing Harry by the upper arm, Liam dragged him back to the cafeteria. Needless to say Harry did **not** want to return to that room. So he didn’t go willingly. But he figured two delinquents against one innocent boy wasn’t good odds, and as soon as he was standing in his same spot in front of everything, eyes devouring him from the outside, he couldn’t breathe again. 

“Alright everybody. We all met Harry already, but he’s just told us he got caught stealing from the local dealer ring.” Liam announced, slapping the boy on his back hard enough to send him stumbling a few steps forward, nearly toppling over a table of two girls and a boy. A few people gave him supportive looks, and Harry felt pleased that he hadn’t been toothbrush-shanked upon his first few minutes. 

Niall ushered him with his free hand to the seat Harry had almost fallen over, sitting himself next to the girls on the opposite side, Liam taking a seat between Harry and the boy on his right. 

“Right, Harry, this is Eleanor, Danielle, and Josh.” Niall spoke, bored, resuming chat with some red-headed boy sitting at the table behind him. Harry listened to the table’s gossip and banter as if he were onlooking it, and not the center of attention.

He felt eyes all over him, felt exposed and uncomfortable. And upon turning halfway around, all the eyes focused back to their own tables.

That is except for one set of intelligent blue eyes, who stared all-too-knowingly at Harry. But this time the boy, Louis, was smiling. Not a dark smile, but a smile that told him everything he needed to know.

If this were a dictatorship, Louis was on top.

Great. He’d been kicked out of real high school, only to be shoved back into mock prison-high school.

He also wasn’t sure which he liked better. At least not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> ehh. not digging the ending to chapter one  
> but whatever


End file.
